A group of almost 40 Emory University students attended a civil rights tour that re-enacted the march from Selma, Ala. to Montgomery, Ala on March 2 and 3. The A. D. King Foundation organized the tour, which included visits to the Legacy Museum, the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church and the Birth Home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The A. D. King Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s younger brother, Rev. A. D. Williams King. Its mission is to educate the public about the “real history” of the movement and to promote youth empowerment and non-violent social change.
Visiting Faculty and Adjunct Professor of Economics Sam Cherribi led Emory students on the tour, which he said is fully funded by Emory. The tour was an optional component of Cherribi’s classes, Economic Development in Africa & the Middle East and Islam in U.S. & Europe.
Citing Emory’s location as an advantage, Cherribi said that Atlanta is the “Black Mecca of the United States.”
“This will give us more distinction than anyplace else and will give us community engagement and will bring us closer to the history, the African American history, Black American history, because what is America without Black history?” Cherribi said.
Cherribi also emphasized the role of African American Muslims in Black history. He said he hoped his students would learn about the “diversity and pluralism” present within the Civil Rights Movement.
“One of the aspects I … want to highlight is that the unity actually, of the Civil Rights Movement, is the fact that it came from the churches, but one aspect a lot of people don’t see was that 20% of the movement, they were Muslims,” Cherribi said.
As a student in Cherribi’s Islam in U.S. & Europe class, Jerusalem Tsige (23C) said that there was a “high correlation between the racialization of Muslims in the United States and the disenfranchisement of Black people.”
Tsige said it was moving to be in the spaces where change was made. She said her most memorable aspect of the tour was learning about the history of civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson and the impact of his death. Alabama State Troopers beat and shot Jackson during a civil rights protest, leading to an expansion of voting rights and freedoms, according to Tsige.
“We’re able to leave with a lot more knowledge than we originally had because I myself am an [African American Studies] minor and I didn’t know about a good majority of this material,” Tsige said.
Roaa Kordeir (26C) is a student in Cherribi’s Economic Development in Africa & the Middle East class. She said that her experience at the Legacy Museum was “emotional,” recalling an installation of head-shaped sculptures that represented enslaved Africans who died in the transatlantic slave trade.
Henry Pang (25C) called his experience “eye-opening.” He said that the most striking aspect of the tour was reenacting the protest march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. He was especially intrigued by the relevance of the Civil Rights Movement and how it relates to politics, noting that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris was present at the reenactment and gave a speech on March 3.
“This tour was a reminder that the Civil Rights Movement was incredibly important in terms of accessibility to vote, but that the work is not done yet and we still have to persevere with making changes to our society, to keep increasing accessibility to voting,” Pang said.
Kordeir noted that it is her “due diligence” to continue educating herself on voting matters, especially with the upcoming presidential election. She also urged the University to expand its requirements to focus more on Black history.
“It’s just so pivotal that students don’t know the impact,” Kordeir said. “To move forward as a society, you need to reference the history.”
Reflecting on his experience, Pang spoke highly of the A. D. King Foundation and tour.
“It’s an organization run by some incredible people and people who speak from lived experiences, which is more value than reading a textbook or searching the internet for answers,” Pang said. “Hearing it firsthand from people who lived during these times and fought for their rights during these times … was inspirational.”
